


The Thing about Puzzles

by The Primera Haruoka (TenshiEren14)



Series: Happiness Is... [2]
Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Fantasy, Blind! V, Elemental Magic, F/M, Gen, Han Clan dynamics, Happy Reading, High Fantasy AU, I can't believe I forgot this one, In a wilts flowers with his breath kinda way, Jumin has no magic, LIKE A LOT MORE, M/M, More tags to be added, Phoenix! Luciel, Poison Magic, Referenced child abuse and experimentation, Rika is creepy, Shitty Empirical Politics, Thunderbird! Saeran, V isn't exactly human, V's a magical boy, Wyvern! V
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2018-12-18 21:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11883165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenshiEren14/pseuds/The%20Primera%20Haruoka
Summary: RFA has always been a heavily isolated nation, hidden behind the Huang Long Mountains and covered in walls that kept them out of view. Elemental magic is supreme and under the rule of the 13th Emperor, Yung Liao Kim, the future of the nation seems bright and prosperous.One day a body is discovered floating upriver and by some bizarre twist of fate, custody of the Outsider is given to the Han family.Little Jumin Han isn't particularly keen on having competition for the title of heir, but when it's discovered that the new housemate is a blind, timid and scarred thing with the body of a doll and the mannerisms of a wild cat, Jumin's curiousity to figure out the new boy gets them into far more trouble than is actually worth.(Alternatively, the misadventures of smol Jumin and Wyvern V which quickly turn into the misadventures of slightly less smol Jumin and Wyvern V)Summary to be adjusted as the story progresses





	1. Apathetic

**Author's Note:**

> So, hello! 
> 
> It’s not exactly my first time writing for Mystic Messenger, particularly for V and Jumin, but it is the first serious story that I’m writing for this fandom and I hope that you enjoy this idea that’s been in my head for close to an entire year now.  
> For those of you that want to know exactly what you’re jumping into, this is a fantasy AU wherein RFA is an isolationist society and V is from the outside. There is of course lots of magic and magical elements in it, but a lot of that will be explained as the story goes on. There’ll be an overarching plot, yes, but the main focus of this fic is the life and relationship between V and Jumin, that said, there will be other relationships, but they won’t show up for a bit. The same goes for characters.
> 
> On that note, there will be a bit of original characters in this fic, but none of them are important, per say and I only add them because the cast of MysMes is so small (damn you Cheritz and your small, amazingly done cast of characters!!).  
> There isn’t much else to say except enjoy the first chapter!

**Apathetic: having or showing little or no feeling or emotion** **:**   **Spiritless**

**** **_-Webster Miriam Dictionary_ **

* * *

 

His mother brings him home on a muggy summer night, exactly five days after the Tide Festival in Saengsu and Han Jumin had no idea what to expect.

He was all of eight summers, bound to be nine soon, but he was shrewd beyond his years with sharp grey eyes and a sharper intellect. When his mother had been called nearly a month ago about the curious body the knights had found floating up Woncheon River he hadn’t thought anything of it. An Outsider wouldn’t last more than a few days in the capital, never mind in the palace and especially not with the paranoia of their king being such a prominent part of his character.

Then, in a twist fitting of a high end mystery novel, it was revealed that, not only was the Outsider a young child, but that Crown Princess Rika herself had taken a liking to the child. In a strange twist of politics, council meetings and the childish demands that had no doubt been thrown at her father Jumin’s mother, Lady Han, had been saddled with the task of caring for the child.

Well, technically, the Outsider was given to the Han family in confidence but his father was still on business in Fenghuang so Lady Han was the one who assumed responsibility for them.

She had gone to collect the Outsider from the palace dressed in her formal black and gold silks, her amber eyes fierce and her bold, red lips leaving Jumin with instructions to wait for her to return on the gazebo in exactly two hours. In all of his years, Jumin had never witnessed his mother be anything less than precisely on time and so, after he finished a lonely dinner and sneaked a few of her discarded spreadsheets up to his room so he could monitor the goings-on of their family stocks in his free time, little Jumin Han sat in the wooden swinging bench that had been hung over their front veranda and waited.

He had brought a book with him to pass the time as he anticipated the tell-tale clop-clopping of his mother’s carriage, but he couldn’t help his wandering mind. Another child meant another contender for the title of Head of the Han Household and while Jumin wasn’t too worried, he was curious. Granted, this child would be an Outsider, different and shunned simply for that fact, perhaps they would even become a servant, but Lady Han wasn’t obtuse or shallow, if the child was a viable heir, she would groom them just as she was grooming Jumin.

If that was the case, Jumin would do his utmost to ensure that his competitor understood that they would have to pry his title from his cold, dead hands.

Time passed slowly and the two hour window his mother had outlined had come and gone with little fanfare. Jumin had long put down his book and had curled in on himself in a corner of the bench, eyes heavy and mind quiet as the night crawled further on. His mother was terribly late at this point and Jumin felt the stirrings of worry edge at his heart, but the sudden clamouring of hooves against hard dirt ground was enough to shake him from his half asleep stupor.

Lady Han strode out of the carriage unassisted, her golden gaze focused solely on the bundle of child held delicately in her hands. Jumin walked out to greet her, comments on her faulty time keeping dying on his lips as he caught sight of the boy(?) curled to his mother’s chest.

Pretty was the first word that came to Jumin’s mind.

Pretty, not in the way a girl was pretty, with her hair done up in decorative styles and her face accented in tasteful makeup, nor was he pretty in the way a flower was pretty, it’s fair petals caught in the sunlight creating a halo of almost there light that attracted the eyes, no, he was pretty like a doll was pretty, porcelain and unblemished and untouchable, so seemingly fragile that one hesitated to even touch it lest their fingerprints leave unsightly scuff marks on it.

The boy (truly Jumin hesitated to call him ‘boy’, his father had told him once that men, and by extension boys, were to be rough around the edges, all roguish smiles and squared shoulders and this child was undermining all of that terribly) was cadaverous. Even with his mother’s coat wrapped around his body, Jumin could make out the gaunt lines in his cheeks indicating a diet that consisted of starvation as well as dark lines that peeked out from below his neck, swirling and deliberate across his body. His eyes were sunken into his small face and his hair was a mess of brilliant turquoise locks that seemed to have gotten into a fight with a brush and a pair of scissors and lost horribly. How one could still look so ethereal while obviously being on the precipice of death was something that Jumin was sure would confound him for the rest of his natural life, but he swallowed his questions and helped his mother place the new boy into the room that had prepared for him and went off to his own quarters, endless questions along with his own drowsiness swirling in his mind.

* * *

 

In the morning, Lady Han had explained the situation to him.

Apparently, no one knew the boy’s name as he refused to speak and he was also completely blind. He seemed quite keen on starving himself to death as he had turned down every meal the princess had offered him and, according to her very heartbroken reports, did nothing but stare out of the palace windows all day, statue still and sightless.

The boy was also very flighty (they had tranquilised him for the trip into town), timid around people in general but near debilitatingly fearful around adults in particular. He hated the touch of hands on him (he had punched the princess on five separate occasions, breaking her nose on the third and dislodging a tooth on the fifth) and refused to wear shoes so the soles of his feet were calloused and bruised. Surprisingly, the strangest thing about the boy (and wasn’t that a joke if Jumin ever heard one, this entire situation was a strange joke, really) was his ability to melt silver. His touch was poisoned, perhaps that was the way his magic manifested itself, but no one could get close enough to offer him gloves or put gloves on him without getting attacked by tiny, skilful fists or getting slashed and consequently poisoned by his sharp nails. It had gotten so bad that the palace doctors had to develop an anti-venom for him which Lady Han now had a supply of.

At this point, Jumin idly wonders why the king didn’t just have the boy killed because he was honestly far more trouble than he was worth (even ignoring the fact that assaulting nobility was punishable by law). He would have to be the one to act a bridge between the strange nameless boy and the rest of the house since he was the only child in the house and since he was unfortunately, terribly _curious_.

His mother had given him a bowl of thin broth that barely had the right to even be called that since it was just vegetable water (his mother didn’t even _season_ it, it was _literally_ vegetable water and Jumin found that revolting) in a weird ceramic pot that Jumin refused to believe was an actual bowl with a wooden spoon since he would only ruin the silver with his poisoned touch and gave him express orders to leave it on his table.

When Jumin reached the stranger’s door on the third floor he knocked cautiously before opening it and reciting a soft morning greeting.

His breath died on his lips when he surveyed the room.

Chaos did even begin to describe it.

The entire room had been ransacked. The bed had been shifted from its position against the leftmost wall, the table that had been against the double-paned windows had been turned over with the curtains covering the legs. The carpet had been upended in some places and burned through in others and there was a bundle of sheets and pillows in front of the fireplace. The windows were wide open, morning sunlight pouring through and doing nothing but illuminating even the smaller details of the now wrecked room, such as the scuff marks on the walls and the footprints above the bed’s new position on the right of the room.

Jumin placed the sad excuse for broth on the small bookshelf that was closest to the door and wondered deeper into the war zone room, in all this chaos there was no sign of the Outsider. His first instinct was to go into the adjoining bathroom but after a quick look around, it was untouched save for the suspicious white liquid that was spread across the sink and Jumin was neither brave enough nor stupid enough to inspect it further.

He moved back into the ruined room and frowned, this was the third floor, so there was absolutely no way the boy had jumped out the window, especially since all the tapestry and sheets were spread across the tables and in front the fireplace respectively. His caught sight of the open windows however and his curiosity won out against his reasoning. Yes, he should absolutely go tell his mother that the boy was missing, but, there was a chance that he was simply outside, on the roof or somewhere else in the room, like the closet (though Jumin doubted that, that closet was so small he was certain you’d die of oxygen deprivation in the few minutes it took you to get comfortable), but Jumin got the feeling that the Outsider wasn’t too pleased with the arrangements. Maybe no one had told him about the change of location?

Wait, did he even understand their language?

Jumin shook his head and moved through the maze of furniture to get to the back window, there was a good chance that the boy had fled back to the palace (but no, Jumin he’s blind, how would he know which way the palace was?) but there was also just as good a chance that he was very confused at the change in setting. At this point, Jumin wasn’t exactly sure which one he’d prefer.

He looked at the window before touching it and sure enough, there was more of that weird white liquid splashed across the windowpane (and, Jumin dully noted, it smelt sweet, like fruit and flowers, nothing he could specifically identify, but like those large flower shops that sold decorative flowers with the sweet perfumes). He deftly avoided putting his hands in it and leaned over, a bit taken back to see the thin boy laying comfortably on the sloping roof tiles with his hand on his bare stomach.

If Jumin had thought the boy looked beautiful before, well, the sunlight simply illuminated even more of his delicate features. The swirling lines he had caught a passing glimpse of before were marks that had been tattooed into his skin in royal blue and dark gold, the deliberate lines swirling elegantly from his prominent clavicle to around his pectoral muscles and down in straight, parallel lines down his midsection. There were tattoos on his arms too, long and twisted that stemmed from dark blue circles painted onto his shoulders and flowed organically around his forearm before winding around his wrist and disappearing behind his head.

Unfortunately, the dark of his tattoos only served to highlight the jagged scars that littered his entire body.

A protuberant line that seemed to split his abdomen into perfect halves, harsh and pink against his deathly pale skin, small indents that seemed to slip between his ribs (and yes, he was skinny enough that Jumin could count his ribs with little trouble), bruises and marks that littered his chest that looked suspiciously like they had come from whips, more small marks and scars that all seemed to tell a horror story of a life spent under lock and key. Jumin couldn’t help the gasp that fell from his lips and in that second, the Outsider was on his feet, hands instinctively curled into fists and balance never wavering despite the no doubt slippery quality of the tiles that still glistened with mid-morning dew.

He really was blind, Jumin noted, as his eyes which were probably meant to be the same obnoxiously bright shade of turquoise as his eyes, were misted over until they were closer to grey than blue. His face held no emotion, however, even as he stood defensively, his eyebrows relaxed and his mouth straight.

Jumin held his hands up (though the act was lost on the boy), “I’m sorry,” he half whispered, “You weren’t in your room so I assumed… “ Jumin trailed off when he noticed the Outsider take a delicate, deliberate sniff in his general direction, not only unnerved by his piercing, empty gaze but also by the strange, almost mechanical way in which he moved.

The Outsider kept his defensive position and Jumin began to get the feeling that he should probably leave before he was attacked. He took a step back, never taking his eyes off of him and took a moment to regain his composure. The Outsider was still standing, eyes unwavering as they pinned him and Jumin couldn’t help but wonder how a blind person could keep track of his body so well. He took a deep breath, “I left breakfast on the bookshelf.” Keep it brief, he told himself, nothing that would put him on higher alert, “I’ll come back to pick up the bowl at noon.”

There were no signs of understanding or acknowledgement, no twitches in his muscles-- Jumin couldn’t even make out the movement of his chest to indicate that he was breathing. He just stood there, back to the sunlight and shoulders tense, like a marble sculpture.

Jumin swiftly turned around and manoeuvred his way through the furniture maze once more. He wasn’t running away, he told himself, he most certainly wasn’t intimidated by the thin walking corpse of a boy who looked like he had never seen the sunlight in his life and he most _definitely_ wasn’t afraid of some random blind child that probably couldn’t even speak their language.

He was going to be late for his violin lesson. Yes, that was it.

He left the room and took another deep breath, his hands were trembling. He shakily took his pocket watch from its place around his waist and checked the time.

Oh, it was only a few minutes past eight. He still had an hour to himself didn’t he?

He looked back at the door to the Outsider’s room and he sighed. He should probably get started on those spreadsheets.

* * *


	2. Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps proximity with this child is more dangerous than people let on...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY HELL BATMAN AN UPDATE???
> 
> Jeez, anything I say will sound like an excuse at this point, but life is gross and so are principals but I prevail!
> 
> Dedicated to @rabbit_hole and @Wilder for their comments keeping me motivated and to my precious big sis for the everlasting moral support!

**Burn: to cauterize, brand.**  
         : to be consumed or destroyed by fire.  
                                                                                                 -Oxford Pocket Dictionary

* * *

 

The Outsider was a paradox.

Jumin had gone back to his room at noon just as he had promised only to find that the entire room had been tidied and shifted. The bed stayed tucked in the right side of the room with the previously capsized table pressed tightly at its side. The curtains were spread across the table in a crude rendition of a tablecloth with a blanket placed neatly atop it. Most of the carpet seemed to have been burned away (especially since Jumin could still catch the scent of scorched fabric in the air despite the wide open windows) with the exception of a very jagged almost square of the plush material which was in front of the fireplace along with all of the pillows and the remaining blankets that should’ve been on the bed. Most notably (and honestly, most expected) was the bowl of disgustingly thin broth which still lay untouched in the position Jumin had left it in on the bookshelf.

The small heir had been, understandably, surprised at this. None of the servants were allowed inside of the stranger’s room and Jumin had seen for himself just how badly off the Outsider’s eyes were so how had this happened?

Jumin, being the healthy eight year old boy that he was, had been enthralled with the weird way in which the room was set up. Usually bedrooms were kept as minimal as possible with clean accents and a very Spartan finish. This room though felt almost like it was inhabited. There were little things that gave the impression of character, a cluttered, messy layout that felt slightly claustrophobic despite the large nature of the room and it was fascinating.

The other notable thing was the exotic scent that lay heavily in the air. Jumin didn’t really know how to describe it. It was a terribly spicy aroma, laden with undertones of earth and rain and cardamom and though he had never smelled anything like it before, he could feel a sense of lingering melancholy wafting on the coattails of the smell. It reminded him of funeral incense, of some deep, profound idea that danced just outside of his reach. It reminded him of sadness, rich and thick and consuming, layered with loneliness and grief.

Jumin was a candid thing who knew little about minding the atmosphere, but even he couldn’t dare to bring himself to ask a question to the pallid blue haired boy sitting quietly in the windowsill.

* * *

 

At dinner, his mother had given him bread with steamed beans to give to Outsider, sure that spending the entire day without eating would make the boy ravenous. Jumin simply wanted the excuse to go back into his room.

This time, when he entered the room, the Outsider was blowing at the dry logs in the hearth, a stream of steady, mephitic-looking green flames curling out of his mouth while he braced himself with his arms to the bricks of the fireplace. In Jumin’s surprise (and, quite frankly, panic) he hurried over to the boy, completely heedless to his aversion to touch and tugged on his shoulder to get him away from the flames.

Perhaps he should’ve taken more time to assess the situation, or even just left the situation alone all together, but the moment his hand made contact with the boy’s body, he made a warped, high-pitched warble from somewhere in the back of his throat, slashed blindly in Jumin’s general direction, clipping him on his cheek and immediately, with startling speed and even more alarming accuracy, dashed through the still open windows, all while a plume of acidic looking flames lit up the room burning Jumin’s left hand and a small part of his clothing.

The pain was something Jumin hadn’t ever felt before. He hadn’t been burnt, no, Jumin knew what a burn felt like, that stinging buzz on the surface of your skin that wrapped around the afflicted area and settled deeply into your tissues until it was eventually soothed away with ice and water. This was no burn.

It felt as though his arm had been stuffed into the flat oven and the temperature set to white hot, like he had stuck his hand into the lava at the top of Choi Mountain, _like his arm was going to fall off and shrivel due to this terrible heat_.

He didn’t know anything, just the awful _hotheatburnsizzle_ that forced screams from his throat and tears from his eyes. On top of that all-consuming burning that seemed to spread the longer he sat there in pain because now his neck was also burning and Mother I can’t move--, there was the underlying flow of _something_ crawling through his veins, sluggish and noxious and terribly uncomfortable and Jumin had no other options but to scream and thrash in indescribable agony because he couldn’t even begin to _think_ about moving.

He wished he could’ve died. His vision was getting blurry and double—no tripled. He could feel the heat searing its way through his body and no one would come to his rescue because it was dinner and his mother insisted that everyone eat dinner at the same time. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, nor was he aware that his throat, dry both from his screaming and from his affliction was unable to sustain noises above whimpers and moans. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes was a wisp of blue and a flash of gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really disgustingly short chapter, but it felt best to end it here. 
> 
> As for the next chapter… well.


	3. Camaraderie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of a relationship.
> 
> Probably

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, I guess. Have a chapter as a gift.

**Camaraderie: a spirit of friendly good-fellowship  
                                                                                            -Merriam-Wester Dictionary. **

 

* * *

 

When Jumin awoke, a small mercy in itself since he had been certain the heat had slow cooked him from the inside out, he was shirtless, wet and cold.

Everything hurt from his head straight to his big toe and he could barely feel his left arm. It was struggle to get air into his lungs despite feeling the cold midsummer breeze over his sensitive skin and he suspected that he wasn’t anywhere near his father’s estate since he could smell the cloying fragrance of white night lilies.

He felt a hand rub something on his arm, cold and sharp-smelling, and though alarm pricked at his senses, all he could manage to do was weakly shift his eyes to look at the offending figure. Small, fragile fingers that ended in dangerous looking claws rubbed a strange green paste into the length of his arm. Even though he could barely feel its burn as it settled over his raw flesh, his body relaxed.

The Outsider was so translucent under the stars that Jumin was convinced he was a fever dream. The only things that anchored his presence was the slight tremble of his fingers as he rubbed the salve into his hurt arm and the deep, deep blue of his markings against his skin.

He couldn’t open his mouth, his body was still in too much shock for that to happen, so he looked around as much as he could with his limited scope of vision.

They were still on his father’s estate. They were in the orchard, close to the small backyard lake where wild berries and lilies intermingled with spidery reeds and willow. Jumin spent time here when he was playing violin by himself and if he stretched his neck far enough, he could spot the manor not too far in the distance. The grass he was laying on was uncomfortable underneath him, damp from the afternoon shower and tickling his exposed ankles. He could spot a few fireflies around them and was following one with his eyes before a frail voice, like ashes on the breeze spoke to him. “Your arm should be useful by morning.”

Jumin was sure his expression was slack. The Outsider knew their language. His voice was a bit accented, it was easy to tell it wasn’t his native tongue, but he had experience in speaking it. The blue haired boy rescinded his hold and sat up, bringing his knees to his chest and resting his chin in the small valley between the peaks of his narrow knees. Jumin’s voice was still caught in his throat, his mouth stuck together like honey was slathered at its seams, but he kept his eyes on him, watching in awe as the boy began catching fireflies in his tiny hands and popping them into his mouth like the insects were candy.

W-Was the Outsider an insectivore? Is that why he rejected food from the palace and now here?

The midsummer silence grew more and more relaxed as time dragged on and eventually, whether from the catharsis of watching the boy next to him gracefully capture fireflies as crickets hummed or the sluggish feeling of exhaustion that slowly swirled through him like mist rolling over the Fenghuang peaks Jumin found himself falling asleep, mind too numbed to hear the sudden muffled clamouring of the manor in the distance as the servants no doubt noticed the absence of the Han heir.

* * *

 

The morning found Jumin feeling incredibly hazy. He was still in the grass, close to the lake but his arm no longer burned. If anything, Jumin’s arm felt as good as new.

He bolted up from his position, uncaring of the grass clinging to his hair and back and looked around for his enigmatic companion, frowning when he noticed the boy lounging in a patch of sunshine, his eyes closed and body language relaxed. With a small clearing of his throat, he began talking. “Good morning.”

There was silence and for a single irritated moment Jumin thought that the night before really was a fever dream brought on by his pain-drunkenness, that the light, lilting voice was a manifestation of his curiosity, but then there was a shifting sound, loud and crinkling like leaves under a heavy boot and Jumin watched as the boy tensed up. There was a plume of thin blue smoke and the scent of burning charcoal and Jumin had to blink a few times because he swore he saw _wings_ , long and elegant and shimmering under the sun, before they were gone with the smoke leaving only the tiny tattooed figure sitting in the patch of sunlight.

Jumin slowly got up, not quite trusting his legs but never-the-less pleased when they supported his weight with only slight trembles. The early morning sunlight bothered his curious eyes, he could feel the light wind against his tender arm as he took a step towards the Outsider, could see the high-strung figure skittishly holding his place in the grass like an injured deer unsure of which direction would be safest to flee in. With small, gentle hands, only slightly calloused from hours of playing a string instrument, Jumin stretched for him, intent on thanking him properly but the boy scattered, taking quick steps back and screeching, a high pitched sound that startled and disoriented. Jumin frowned. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

He furrowed his brow and gazed again that the shaking boy, deceptively skinny legs that flowed into nimble feet that barely made indents in the grass. His eyes were closed strangely enough and his cheeks and neck seemed to shine under the sun, almost like his skin was made of glass. He could smell the aroma of burnt charcoal again, sharp and overwhelming and very alarming and Jumin sighed understanding slowly curling its way into his clever mind. “Would it make you more comfortable if I stayed here?”

The boy stayed still, so unchanged from the question that Jumin almost assumed that the boy really didn’t comprehend a single word that came from his mouth, but then, there was nod. A slight movement of his head that was so infinitesimally minute that had Jumin not been staring intently at the boy he would’ve missed it.

Jumin slowly settled down in the grass, uncaring of the prickliness if it meant he could learn more about the strange boy. “My name is Jumin. Han Jumin. Can you understand me?”

The moment Jumin sat down, the boy’s guard relaxed slightly. He didn’t make a move to respond to Jumin’s prodding and the raven hair boy felt his face twist into a displeased frown. “Can you speak?”

More still silence like the heir was speaking to a wall rather than a person and Jumin was quite tired of this already. “I already know you can talk, you spoke to me last night. It’s impolite to ignore people.”

He hoped making it known that he was conscious during the Outsider’s little nurse’s note would make it clear that he couldn’t pretend that he was mute any longer, but still infernal silence filled the clearing. Jumin huffed, this was pointless. He made to get up and leave for the house, his skin was beginning to itch from the grass, but a small voice fragile and quiet stopped him. “V.”

‘V’. That wasn’t a real name. It had to be short for something. Maybe Vsna? Jumin had heard that name when he had gone to Seiryu though he was pretty sure it was a girl’s name.

He made himself comfortable in the grass, perhaps he could get more information from the boy.

* * *

 

Jihyun was uncomfortable.

This… human child was too curious for his tastes. His interested scent and eager fingers reminded him far too much of those monsters underground.

 It was a strange thing, he thought. The humans beyond the walls were nothing like the strange human-like creatures he’d observed inside the strong structure. Outside, where humans were nothing but another rung on the food chain, they rarely gathered in such large, elaborate colonies, especially since they knew it simply painted them as targets for the dogs and bloodsuckers. To see them create a city from paper and wood (of course, Jihyun couldn’t really _see_ but his investigation of the room was enough to tell him all he needed to know) and have their own bustling metropolis, it was strange.

He wanted to examine the walls he had brushed past when he made his way in, longed to spread his wings and stretch his limbs but she had gotten him good. Had clipped his wings when he was at his weakest and fed him that disgusting brew that threw his chemicals off balance. It made him uneasy, trapped him inside of his own skin with countless humans who he knew from experience were far too curious for their own good, why she had left him with this particular nest of humans, he didn’t wish to find out.

“Is V your real name?”

Then there was this one.

Jihyun didn’t mind children. To be frank, he loved human hatchlings. They were eager and pure, some willful, others timid but all with the capacity to cherish and adore. Their honesty was their best trait.

 He sniffed softly, his voice was so frail after he had flushed the potion from his system, it was disgraceful. He didn’t want to show weakness in front of another human but he had injured this one and he was still regretful. He had been startled, that was it. He shook his head and kept his hands busy, creating small poisonous flowers in the grass at his feet. Han Jumin as he called himself smelled of paper, ink and resin. The artificial scents had written themselves into the fabric of the boy and Jihyun thought it was interesting. Children should smell of sunshine and fruit, of days spent outside learning how to fight and grow and climb and nights spent charting stars. Perhaps human culture was different.

“How old are you?”

Jihyun hummed. He was still young. Barely past his childhood years, but his lifespan was quite different from that of a human. He had lived for many summers but time had not touched him and to say such a thing would be strange. He had forgotten what the conversions were if he were being honest, he had spent so much time underground where sunlight was rare and counting the passing of time was nigh impossible that he had forgotten all but the most important of things. He had forgotten his exact age to tell the truth, he just knew it was somewhere around 65 summers, his physical age however didn’t show this.

He shrugged, a slight movement of scrawny shoulders that brushed against his tangled, messy locks.

He heard a huff of aggravation. “You aren’t very chatty are you?”

Jihyun shook his head, turning his attention back to the mordisco blooms he was conjuring right under the nose of the boy. Jumin stood up, shifting the air around him and quite suddenly all of Jihyun’s attention was on the human, searching for an excuse to move further away from the prying hands. Jumin shifted more air around him, probably raising his hands, “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s getting late, we’ll miss breakfast. Today’s menu should be salmon.”

Jihyun felt his claws twitch. Salmon. As in the fish? When was the last time he had had something with enough flesh that he could really sink his growing teeth into it? He had been gorging himself on little things like birds and lizards and insects for so long, he had been convinced that humans were grass eaters. The excitement must have shown on his face because he heard the little human laugh, a pleasant thing that reminded Jihyun of harsh wind blowing noisy leaves in autumn, staccato and with the illusion of depth. “You like fish, I take it?”

He nodded eagerly, getting up from his position in the grass and keeping a flower in his hands. He waited for Jumin to start moving before following his lead. He would leave the flower in his personal room later. Mordiscos were only dangerous if someone consumed them and Jihyun was beginning to think that he could also describe this peculiar human in that way too. Dangerous, but only if one got too intimate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who want to know, V’s physical age is 9 but his actual age is XX years old. Wyverns age a lot differently than humans, but V’s had some stuff done to him so he’s gonna age like a human boy. 
> 
> There’ll be timeskips from this point onwards but, tbh, I like how this is turning out~
> 
> Come screech to me on tumblr @harookandbishops.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s such a struggle to not write ‘V’ every time I’m referring to him, like how do people do this??
> 
> So! That was the first chapter. Hopefully I can fulfil my criteria as well as tell this story in the way I want to without getting too side-tracked or extravagant. I have very strict guidelines for this fic, so maybe that’ll help me keep a consistent update and writing schedule. 
> 
> In other, not technical related news, how’d you guys like it? The chapters will pretty much vary in length, sometimes longer or shorter than 3000 words but I’ll try to be consistent. Anyway, I know that AU work isn’t really prominent in the MysMes fandom, especially not this hugely different kind of AU, but I do hope you guys give it a try. I’m excited for this verse, there’s a lot to get done in this story!
> 
> Thank you for reading and feel free to leave a comment and ask questions on your way out!
> 
> -Haru


End file.
